


Washed in the Tide of Her Breathing

by doctorbuffypotterlock79



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Depression, F/F, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Lesbian AU, excessive amounts of wool and flannel, lighthouse keeper Brooke, mentions of past death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:07:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22133782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorbuffypotterlock79/pseuds/doctorbuffypotterlock79
Summary: Red sky in morning, sailor’s warning.They’re her grandfather’s words, words that were passed down to Brooke. According to old sailor legends, a morning red sky means a bad storm is coming. A storm worse than the one last night, that howled and splattered outside her window?Brooke isn’t sure she wants to meet a storm worse than that.Brooke is a lonely lighthouse keeper and Vanessa washes up on her shore.
Relationships: Brooke Lynn Hytes/Vanessa Vanjie Mateo
Comments: 52
Kudos: 78





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This started off as a tumblr post I sent to writ, turned into a one-shot idea, and became this mini multi-chaptered fic. I have so enjoyed writing it so far, and I hope you all enjoy reading it! I appreciate any feedback you have! Thank you to Writ for brainstorming this with me, betaing, and for all your encouragement. Title from Cherry Wine by Hozier. 
> 
> *I do want to add that there will be mentions of past death, anxiety, and depression throughout, so please be cautious.*

On the day Brooke Lynn Hytes was born, the skies opened up and rain screamed down with her. The rain pounded on the roof and rattled the windows as she was wrapped in a white hospital blanket. Wind tore branches from the trees as her legs kicked around. The streets rose with water as she slept in her mother’s arms. 

From then on, it seemed significant events in her life always came with a storm. 

She was six when her parents didn’t come pick her up from kindergarten. Brooke had stood on the steps, _Little Mermaid_ lunch box in hand, craning her neck to find her parents in the crowd. She stood there as the swarm of kids and parents thinned out, leaving Brooke all alone on the steps. Breathless empty space stretched as vast as the sea in front of her, sun reflecting the bare pavement. She stood there so long one of the teachers took her inside, and Brooke sat in an empty classroom, trembling with fear, until a police officer came to the school and said there had been an accident. 

_An accident_. It was all Brooke heard when anyone tried to talk to her. _An accident_. An accident was when another girl bumped into her at recess and Brooke scraped her knee. An accident was when she hit into her mother’s vase and the blue glass shards rippled on the floor. 

How could her parents not being there anymore be an accident too?

The town flooded for a week after they died, raindrops falling in time with the tears of a confused young girl, struggling to understand why she had to live in a scary old lighthouse with her grandfather, why her mom and dad couldn’t take her to the park or the library anymore. 

The day her grandfather picked her up in his green truck, lightning flashed and thunder tore the sky apart but no rain fell as Brooke sat in the backseat, fearfully clutching her stuffed turtle and not saying a word. 

When her grandfather died and she inherited the lighthouse, soft raindrops drizzled to the pavement, trickling down windows like silken threads. 

When the storm smashes into the windows as Brooke is wrapped in her quilts one night, waves swelling so fierce they’ll throw ships around like toy boats, ocean lapping up against the rocks like a hungry dog, Brooke wonders what’s awaiting her the next day. 

\---

The rain is still drizzling down when Brooke wakes, the sky a soft pink, like a paintbrush swept across the world, interrupted with streaks of red like broken blood vessels. 

_Red sky in morning, sailor’s warning_. 

They’re her grandfather’s words, words that were passed down to Brooke. According to old sailor legends, a morning red sky means a bad storm is coming. A storm worse than the one last night, that howled and splattered outside her window? 

Brooke isn’t sure she wants to meet a storm worse than that. 

Brooke has a certain routine, and today is no exception. It’s Wednesday, which means breakfast at Nina and Shuga’s diner and therapy with Dr. Ganache. She lays out food and water for her cats, scratching Henry’s ears and rubbing Apollo’s back while they eat. She washes down her medications with ice water and pulls on jeans and a green wool sweater. 

Her dark blue pickup truck makes the quick journey down the main street of Cape Charles, the smell of salt and ocean calming her, reminding her that it’s okay to be outside, that nothing bad will happen just because she left the house. 

The diner stands beside the three-screen movie theatre, its plush velvet seats like home to Brooke. She’d been sitting in the dark and watching stories unfold on the big screen, salty popcorn stuck to her lips, since she was a kid who couldn’t even reach the counter to take her favorite Reese’s Pieces. The damp cobblestone sidewalk is solid beneath her. She used to run down these streets with her grandfather trailing behind her when her feet were much smaller. When everything was much smaller. 

The diner door jingles happily. Shuga, in position behind the counter, greets Brooke with a smile and motions for her to take her usual booth in the back corner. Brooke breathes in the rich smell of sweet syrup and sizzling bacon, the safety of those scents and the warmth of the diner’s pale blue decor filling her. 

“Sky sure is red this morning,” Nina comments as she pours Brooke’s coffee. “What’s that thing the sailors say? Red sky in morning--”

“Sailor’s warning.” Brooke’s answer is rough and scratches at her throat like gravel. It’s been a few days since she last talked, and her voice is hoarse from disuse as she speaks now, sipping carefully from her steaming coffee. 

“Those sailors were so _somber_ ,” Nina says, pursing her lips. “Maybe the warning could be a good warning. Maybe something good is gonna happen.”

Brooke disagrees, but she won’t take that hope from Nina. Nina and Shuga are two of the only people in town who don’t whisper about Brooke being crazy, or share in the more outlandish theories that Brooke is a ghost haunting the lighthouse. 

Though sometimes Brooke does feel like a ghost, like there’s not even enough of her to hold down a solid human form. Like she might look at herself in the mirror one day and find nothing there. No sign there ever _had_ been something there. 

“Maybe,” Brooke tries. 

“You having your usual today?” Nina asks. Brooke always gets the same thing, but Nina likes to check with her just in case. 

“Yeah.” 

Nina smiles. “I’ll have it right out for you, hon.”

Brooke flicks through what their small town dares to call a newspaper, today’s news-worthy feature being seagulls stealing French fries on the beach. A few minutes later Nina sets the glorious stack of apple-cinnamon pancakes and crispy bacon in front of Brooke, with the extra homemade whipped cream Nina started bringing when she noticed how much Brooke liked it. 

“Thanks, Nina,” Brooke says, a wave of affection hitting her. 

“Of course.”

Brooke eats slowly, savoring each bite of fluffy pancake, each sip of rich coffee. It’s nice to be able to taste it all, to notice the soft patter of rain on the roof, to be comforted by the booth’s cushion. She focuses on each sensation, like Dr. Ganache encourages, and Brooke appreciates it, a far cry from her bad months when she couldn’t feel or notice anything, the world just a mass of gray around her. 

Brooke goes to her therapy appointment and regains her voice with what is the most talking she’ll do all week. It had been uncomfortable to her at first, having to talk so much about herself, her parents, her grandfather. Now, it’s almost a relief to let the words spill out, to get all the thoughts out of her head, like releasing a dam bursting with poisoned water. 

Brooke busies herself during her afternoon routine, making sure everything is set for tonight. Her mind calms as her hands come alive, wiping down the windows in the lighthouse tower, cleaning the lenses on the light, and checking the ship schedules. A lot of the ships have already canceled their routes. Sailors are a superstitious bunch, and they’d taken the red sky to heart. The light is scheduled to turn on at 4, but she turns it on now because the rain has grown too thick to see around. 

Her grandfather said in the old days they would change the oil of the light and trim the wicks down, but it’s electric now. Brooke spent hours each day following him around, watching his rough, callused fingers tidy the tower and study weather reports, keeping logs of ships scheduled to pull in to Cape Charles that night. Everything she knows about keeping the lighthouse is from him, a former sailor.

He would speak in a soft voice about the sea, his time sailing, how it was important to keep the lighthouse because even with navigation services, that light would outshine everything. Each word was soaked with the salt and brine of the sea, waves roaring in Brooke’s ears as he spoke, and Brooke would just listen, her grandfather never making her talk if she didn’t want to. His voice still clings to the brick of the tower walls as ocean clings to sand. Sometimes Brooke can hear it loud and clear and sometimes it’s just a faint whisper, tinged with the fear of forgetting. 

The rest of the day is quiet, just the way she likes it. She exchanges her jeans for soft leggings, heats up milk for hot chocolate, and curls up on the couch with a bowl of mac and cheese, the cats, and Jane Austen movies (she’ll fight anyone who says there’s a better adaptation than the 2005 _Pride and Prejudice_ ).The storm rains down in a heavenly wrath with no sign of stopping. The wind wails like a woman in fear of the booming thunder.

An alert comes in that the town streets have flooded and all roads are closed until further notice. The sea should be empty tonight, but Brooke leaves the light on anyway. She always does, just in case someone out there needs the light. Just in case someone needs to get home, wherever they are. 

She curls up beneath a pile of blankets with the cats at her feet. It’s cozy and warm and yet sleep takes hours to come, the cats whining with each toss and turn. Brooke swears she can hear her name in the howl of the wind and patter of the rain, like the storm is calling to her, but she doesn’t know why. 

\---

Gray blots out the sun when Brooke wakes, a typical morning in Cape Charles. She takes her meds and is checking on the light when she sees it. 

There’s something down by the water, flapping in the wind.

Breath halts in her throat. Just visible through the rain is a fishing net with something--no, some _one_ \--tangled in it.

Heart pounding, Brooke throws on her rain boots and coat and enters the cold rain, water bobbing at her ankles, tall frame shivering as the chill seeps through her clothes. The familiarity of the stone path calms her racing heart, laughter of the young Brooke that used to run down this path--another ghost--carried on the winds of memory. 

The land beneath her lighthouse isn’t a beach, just a small piece of rocky sand jutting out at the ocean. She used to spend hours by the water, sand sticking to her legs as she built castles that in her mind were stone, not sand, searching for seashells that her grandfather always praised her for finding, and gazing out at the water and pretending to be a sailor like him, commanding her own ship and fighting off pirates. 

Brooke lets the memory fight away her fears as she reaches a woman, net tangled around her like tendrils. Brown hair hangs in soaked curtains around her face, torn clothes black with the water weighing them down.

“Fuck,” Brooke mutters, a million questions running through her mind. How the hell did this woman get here? What happened to her? 

Brooke scoops up the woman, net and all. She’s tiny nestled in Brooke’s arms, and something tugs in Brooke’s chest, some need to protect this woman, keep her safe. The feeling only grows as she cuts through the net and lays the woman on her couch before standing blankly, helplessly, in the living room.

What the hell is she supposed to do now? She can’t just leave an unconscious woman in her house. If it’s not outright illegal, it’s certainly _wrong_ , but what choice does Brooke have? The roads are flooded and blocked off; no one can get in or out of the town. They’re both stuck here, stuck like a sinking ship. 

Brooke’s breath is speeding into erratic hiccups over having someone here. No one has been inside except Brooke and the cats since her grandfather died seven years ago. When Brooke is inside, all the bad things that happen outside, like parents getting in car accidents and grandfathers having heart attacks, can’t happen. Nothing bad happens in the lighthouse. Nothing can hurt her. 

It’s why Brooke never returned the voicemail a woman from the local historical society left years ago, asking if she wanted to open the lighthouse for tours a few days a week during summer tourist season. She told herself it was because she doesn’t need the money and because talking on the phone makes her want to throw up (both of which are true), but the real reason was that she didn’t want people in _her_ lighthouse, didn’t want her safety at risk. She doesn’t want intruders, and it’s hard to think of this woman as anything but that, especially when Brooke’s hands start to tremble and sweat runs down her neck as her vision blurs. 

_Breathe_. She practices the counted breathing from therapy, willing her lungs to accept air. In and out, in and out. She reaches for a piece of rope, one of hundreds all over the house, shaky hands rhythmically tying and untying knots until her mind clears and she focuses on what to do next. 

There’s a thin cut on the woman’s forehead and bruises dotting her arms. It makes the woman seem oddly fragile, like a teacup, the bruises and cut like chips in her otherwise perfect appearance. Brooke’s stomach clenches as she looks at the injuries. She’s always been squeamish about blood and medical stuff (she still has to close her eyes when she gets a flu shot), but she finds herself not queasy but saddened as she absorbs the rips in the woman’s clothing. What happened to this woman? Are the marks from waves tossing her about, or are they from a human, a cruelty worse than the randomness of nature? Waves have no control, but a person does, and Brooke’s fists tense at the thought of someone deliberately hurting this woman. 

She takes a breath. Whatever happened isn’t important now. She needs to help. 

Brooke removes the woman’s soaked clothes and dresses her in flannel pajama pants, wool socks, and a soft gray sweatshirt, taking care in being gentle, in causing this woman as little pain as possible, even if she’s unconscious. Brooke can’t do much for the bruises, but she carefully dabs antiseptic on the cut and tapes a square of gauze over it. She breathes a sigh of relief that there’s no other injuries and piles blankets on top of the woman’s small form. 

Only when she’s bandaged up, the clean white making things seem a little less scary, does Brooke realize how lucky this woman actually is. She’s been through who knows what, left on rocky sand in a downpour, and there’s barely a mark on her. There should be scrapes and a _lot_ more bruises; a few broken bones would be expected. Hell, if she was carried by the sea, she’s lucky to be _alive_ , and yet the slice on her forehead is little more than a papercut.

The squashy armchair hugs her like a friend, and Brooke is too tired to answer the questions swirling in her mind, too tired to change out of her cold, damp clothes. The woman’s breathing is steady, hypnotic, and sleep tugs Brooke under like a tide. 

\---

“Where the _fuck_ am I?” a gruff voice shoots Brooke out of sleep. 

The woman is sitting up on the couch, wrestling with the mountain of blankets and whipping her head around in confusion. 

“Why is this so heavy?” The woman demands, sending Brooke’s weighted blanket to the floor. “And who the hell are you?”

Brooke’s stomach flip-flops, words speeding through her mind but not leaving her mouth. Things were easier when the woman was unconscious, when Brooke knew to bandage her and warm her up, when there was no talking involved. Now, Brooke has no idea what to do. There might be a first aid manual, but there isn’t one on talking to people, much less people who washed up on the shore in a fishing net. 

“Um, I’m Brooke,” she says, inching toward the couch. Her fingers twitch for her rope but she resists. “I--I found you. On the shoreline. It’s okay,” she offers weakly, just because it seems like something she should say. 

The woman’s dark brows wrinkle in confusion. “Where am I?” She asks, and some of the harshness leaves her voice, replaced with a fear that Brooke wants to soothe. This woman has obviously been through enough already, and Brooke’s heart aches for her. She remembers how scared she was moving in here the first time, how calm and kind her grandfather had been, and steadies her voice to comfort the woman. 

“Cape Charles. It’s a tiny town by the ocean. This is my lighthouse. I found you in...in a net.”

The woman lowers her head. “Yeah. I was on a boat across the cape. I went overboard in the storm. I grabbed a life vest and followed the lighthouse. The net musta stuck to me.”

Brooke is silent. The net wasn’t stuck to her, she was _trapped_ in it. There’s other glaring holes in the story--where’s the vest? Why was she sailing in a storm?--and from the way the woman keeps avoiding her eyes, Brooke is sure she knows it. Brooke decides to just let her be. She’s always shied away from confrontation.

“Uh, is there anyone you need to call?”

The woman just shakes her head and Brooke doesn’t want to pry. 

“Right, um, the storm’s still going on, and the roads are closed, so--”

“I’m stuck here,” the woman interjects. 

“Yeah. I’m sorry. B-but once the roads are okay, you can go back home.”

“What if I don’t want to go back?” she asks.

Brooke pauses. There’s a storm in the woman’s eyes at the question, brown flashing like lightning. She wonders what might have happened to account for the disgust in her eyes, but it’s not her business. 

“Then I’ll help you get wherever you want to go.”

A small smile of approval runs across the woman’s face, her features glowing, like Brooke passed some sort of test. Brooke finds herself smiling in return as the woman speaks. “I guess if I’m gonna be in your house you should know my name. I’m Vanessa.” 

“Brooke.”

“Yeah, you told me.” 

Brooke’s face burns. “Right.”

Vanessa huffs a small laugh. “You think I could shower?”

“Oh, of course.” Brooke leads her down the hall, and it’s nice to have control again, to focus on a task, even one as simple as walking to the bathroom. She points out where to find towels and changes out of her still-cold clothes before getting some for Vanessa. 

“Damn, you rob Lush or somethin’?” Vanessa asks when Brooke returns. 

Brooke sheepishly looks at the rainbow mountain of bath bombs beside her towels. She buys one every week from A’keria’s boutique in town, partly because A’keria is always nice to her but mostly because Brooke likes sinking into the tub and watching the colors ripple around her. 

“You-you can use one if you want,” she offers, setting the clothes by the sink. “There’s an extra toothbrush under the sink too. Here’s the clothes. Sorry, they’ll be a little big.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Vanessa says reassuringly. “Thanks, Brooke.”

“Of course,” Brooke manages, mouth suddenly dry as Vanessa runs a hand through her flowy curls. 

Brooke listens to the rain outside with a growing dread. What is she supposed to do with Vanessa in her house until the streets clear? She’s not used to people being there. Even when her grandfather was alive, Brooke would go for walks on the beach or to the movies alone. No one made her feel freer than she did herself.

But then her grandfather died, and Brooke hasn’t had anyone since. Now, it’s almost like her solitude is something she’s stuck in, rather than her choice, and she doesn’t know how to get out of it, doesn’t know how to let someone in. It’s been seven years since she started seeing Dr. Ganache, since she got herself out of that dark place and back into the light, but it still feels like Brooke hasn’t rediscovered her old self or fully formed her new self yet, her edges blurry as she flickers in and out of being.

Her eyes drift to the picture of her grandfather, smiling at her in his big navy coat. He had made her feel safe and comfortable when no one else could, and Brooke vows to try and follow his example with Vanessa. 

“Shouldn’t the walls be round if we in a lighthouse?” Vanessa’s booming voice enters the kitchen. 

Brooke sees immediately that _‘a little big’_ was an understatement. The hem of Brooke’s gray wool sweater brushes Vanessa’s knees, and she’s rolled the sleeves back three or four times to free her hands. It makes her seem smaller, softer, and Brooke’s heart tugs as she’s hit with a sudden image of Vanessa curling into her side, wrapping her arms around Vanessa’s waist, as they cuddle and watch movies. She blinks the thought away.

“This is a cottage attached to the lighthouse,” Brooke explains. “The entrance to the tower is down the hall.”

Vanessa nods and seats herself at the kitchen table. Brooke follows, legs bouncing. She bites her lip, trying to think of absolutely _anything_ to talk about and failing as the silence grows longer. 

“I’m kinda hungry,” Vanessa says with a shy grin. 

Right. Food. That’s something you offer guests in your house. 

It’s almost noon; they might as well have lunch, even if Brooke never had breakfast. “Um, do you like grilled cheese?” It seems a safe enough option. It was what Brooke’s grandfather had made on her first night in the lighthouse, so crispy and gooey that Brooke ate the whole thing even though she hadn’t been hungry all week. 

“Hell yeah!”

Brooke smiles as she gets to work, the sizzling of the sandwiches on the griddle filling the kitchen. There’s something about Vanessa, how she’s so unashamedly loud and excited, that puts Brooke at ease, stops her fears over having an intruder. 

Vanessa’s grin almost overtakes her face as Brooke sets the plates down. 

“So,” Vanessa begins eagerly, “is this place haunted? I thought all lighthouses were haunted.”

“I don’t think so,” Brooke says. “I’m pretty sure my great-great-grandfather died here though.”

Vanessa clicks her tongue in approval. “See? Haunted. He’s probably just waitin’ to pop out of a mirror.”

“It’s not haunted.”

“But it could be.” There’s a mischievous glint in Vanessa’s eyes as she eats her sandwich. 

“Well, _any_ place could be haunted,” Brooke argues. 

“Yeah, but when you think of _haunted_ , it’s an old house, an old hospital, or an old, scary-ass lighthouse.” Vanessa nods to herself, chin jutting out toward Brooke. Brooke has to admit her argument is pretty solid. 

“Do you _want_ this place to be haunted?” Brooke asks. 

“Oh, hell no! I don’t want that spooky shit near me!”

Brooke laughs and Vanessa laughs too, and Brooke is wondering if maybe this won’t be so bad. If maybe they’ll be okay for a few days like this. But then the moment ends and Brooke studies the cheese dangling from her bread as the silence fills the kitchen once more, and she thinks she was wrong. 

“How long do you think the roads will be closed?” Vanessa asks. 

Brooke shrugs. “Depends on the storm. It’s supposed to stop Friday night. If it does, things should be clear by Monday or Tuesday.”

 _Four days_ , Brooke thinks. She has to get through at least four days of eating with someone, sharing her TV, having Vanessa wear her clothes. Four days of sharing her space, of someone _being_ there. Four days of Vanessa breathing in the same salty air as her, looking out at the same deep blue water. Would she search the waves for answers, like Brooke did? What kind of questions did Vanessa want the swirling blue to answer?

Brooke is thinking too much. It’s just a few days. A few days, and her life goes back to normal. Vanessa is just some stranded stranger, nothing more. 

“Sorry, what?” Brooke asks, heat spreading through her when she notices Vanessa’s lips moving.

Vanessa looks down at her empty plate. “I just--thanks for helping me. For letting me stay here and everything.”

Her words ring with sincerity, and Brooke finds herself trusting Vanessa despite the obvious lie about how she got here. “It’s no problem.”

“Well, thank you.” Vanessa whips her head up, eyes sparkling. “So, can I see the tower?”

\---

“This is some real spooky shit.”

Brooke snorts as Vanessa looks up into the tower, old red brick mixed with black metal stairs circling the walls to the top. When Brooke was younger, she used to think looking up into the tower was like looking up from a giant’s mouth, rickety metal steps turning into the giant’s teeth, which she had to climb to get to the light and save the town. 

“We can’t both fit on the stairs, so I’ll go first to lead you,” Brooke offers. She always went first with her grandfather, knowing that he was behind her if she fell or got scared. She wonders if she’ll ever have that same trust in someone. 

They curve up the walls, steps narrowing as they get higher. Finally, they approach the opening that leads to the observation deck. Brooke pulls herself through, muscles rippling with familiarity. She turns and grabs Vanessa’s hands to help her up. 

Brooke stands on the deck, calm at once, the floor-to-ceiling windows circling her and showing off the rainy landscape and deep sea. She turns to show Vanessa and finds her sticking her head through the opening to gaze down into the tower.

“Whoa,” Vanessa breathes. “It’s like one of those collider-scope things.”

“Kaleidoscope?” Brooke asks around a smile. 

“Yeah! Come look!”

Brooke shakes her head. “I-I’m afraid of heights.”

“But you’re up here,” Vanessa says in confusion, pulling herself up. 

“I can be up here, I can look at the water, but I can’t look down. When I look down, I feel like I’m falling,” Brooke explains. 

“I guess that makes sense,” Vanessa agrees. Then she notices the windows and what lies beyond them, and Brooke’s face warms as she watches Vanessa’s eyes light up. “Holy _shit_ , Brooke.”

It’s a view Brooke herself saw for the first time at age six and hasn’t tired of since. A view that makes her fears seem smaller. A view that calms her, makes her feel less alone without her parents by showing her the ocean and the world and all the life inside it. A view that made her cry the first time she came up after her grandfather died, and knew that the view was hers alone now, that she would never share it with him again.

Vanessa is here with her now, and Brooke can’t fight the burst of affection, the gratitude of having her here. Of knowing that she isn’t alone, that someone exists to see this ocean with her. 

“It’s beautiful up here,” Vanessa declares, crossing to the windows and staring out at the water. 

“Yeah, it is.” Brooke works through her routine as Vanessa stares out the rain-splattered windows, and she can’t help but notice that Vanessa’s face is just as radiant as the sea.

\---

Vanessa almost trips over Henry and Apollo when she climbs down the stairs, the cats in their usual spot below the first step. Neither cared to climb the 97 steps to the light, but they waited every afternoon for Brooke to come back down and see them. 

“You have cats!” Vanessa squeals, gripping Brooke’s arm to steady herself, her hand warm through the thick wool Brooke’s wearing. 

“Yeah. Apollo is the gray and Henry is the brown,” Brooke explains as Vanessa crouches to pet them. “Don’t feel bad if they don’t like you at first. They’re kind of only used to me.”

Yet Apollo nestles his nose right up against Vanessa’s palm without hesitation, and it somehow seems fitting. 

—-

Vanessa insists on helping Brooke with dinner, boiling the pasta and sneaking samples of the lemon-garlic sauce Brooke is making, eagerly mixing shrimp and linguine together with the biggest spoon she could find. 

“So, um, where are you from?” Brooke asks Vanessa, almost losing her fork in her sweaty grasp. She wishes she had a piece of rope to calm her. Before dinner, Brooke had reviewed some of the topics Dr. Ganache had told her were good starting points for meeting new people, and she’s hoping they’ll be okay for this. 

But the look that flits across Vanessa’s face is anything but okay. 

“I live about an hour away, in the city. I used to live in Florida, though. Moved up about 10 years ago, after my parents died.”

“Oh. I’m sorry,” Brooke says quietly. “You’re probably sick of hearing that, though,” she adds. Brooke remembers how it was all she heard for weeks after her parents died, all from somber-faced grown-ups she didn’t know. 

“Yeah. After a while, you know it’s all people are gonna say, and you kinda stop hearing it.” Vanessa shrugs, then looks into Brooke’s eyes. “Thank you, though. It’s nice of you to say.” She scoops up a piece of shrimp. “How about you? You always live here?”

“In Cape Charles, yeah. Moved into the lighthouse with my grandfather when I was six. My...my parents died too.” Brooke wasn’t planning to tell Vanessa--she’s just here for a few days, and practically a stranger--but something about her has earned Brooke’s trust. Some sort of understanding that Vanessa knows how it feels and won’t pity her. 

Vanessa’s face falls. “You’re probably sick of it too, but I am sorry.”

It’s sincere, just like everything Vanessa says, and Brooke doesn’t care what secret she’s hiding, why Vanessa shuts down and abruptly changes the subject when Brooke asks if she sails a lot, in an effort to find out why she was on a boat in a storm. Whatever got her here is clearly a sore subject and Brooke vows not to ask again. 

“Do you like hot chocolate? I could make some,” Brooke offers after dinner. It’s another safe option, she’s hoping. Her grandfather’s weapon of choice whenever Brooke was upset. She knows he had been shaken to his core when he would put the mug on her bedside table only for it to go untouched, whipped cream melting into hot liquid before the whole thing went ice-cold, the effort of sitting up, grabbing the mug, and drinking it just too much for Brooke during her bad months. 

“Of course I do! Is there a show or somethin’ we could watch, since we’re here for a few days?” Vanessa asks. 

Brooke pauses to think. Vanessa seems like someone that likes action, something exciting. “ _Game of Thrones_ will take us a few days. I might punch my pillows when we hit the final season, though.”

“Why?”

Brooke grins wickedly. “You’ll see.”

\---

It’s not until later that night, after putting fresh sheets on the spare bed (Vanessa throwing herself across the mattress to reach), when Vanessa is in Brooke’s plaid pajamas that she keeps tripping on, sleeves rolled back to her elbows, slurping hot chocolate from a lobster mug, that Brooke sees it. Or, rather, the _lack_ of it. 

All Brooke sees are Vanessa’s smooth, unblemished wrists, where there had been mottled blue and purple just this morning. 

This can’t be right. Had she imagined the bruises? No, she knows she saw them, can still feel the anger pulsing under her skin at the thought of Vanessa being hurt. But how could they be gone already? Brooke glances at the fresh gauze Vanessa put on her forehead after showering. If Brooke takes it off, will she find perfect, unbroken skin there too?

Her grandfather told her there were all kinds of creatures in the ocean. Most people regarded them as legends, but sitting by the fire, hands wrapped around a mug of hot chocolate, Brooke had believed him.

Is it possible Vanessa is something...more? Not a mermaid; in the stories, they can only walk on earth for a short time. A siren? But sirens are nasty creatures in the legends, luring people to their island for the joy of watching them drown, and Vanessa has been nothing but kind. Maybe Brooke is just trying too hard to make something of nothing, to keep hold of her grandfather’s stories. Maybe she’s trying to find some reason, some excuse, for why she likes Vanessa, actually enjoyed the day with her. 

It would be easier if Vanessa has some kind of magic, because at least that would explain why Brooke falls asleep with a smile on her face and Vanessa’s laugh looping in her mind.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brooke and Vanessa grow closer while stuck inside the lighthouse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone that read and commented on chapter 1! Your support means so much to me! I would love if you could leave some feedback on this chapter. Writ is the best and I can't thank them enough for beta-ing, brainstorming with me, and answering all my questions.  
> 

For a second when she wakes up, Brooke forgets. 

She forgets there’s a woman just feet away, tucked under a plaid quilt in Brooke’s old bedroom-turned-guest-room that’s been useless until now, her presence breaking through the dust of memories coating the room. The room overlooks the ocean, and Brooke used to read by the window while sea-kissed breezes flowed through. Her parents smiled at her from the precious few photos she had of them, a collection that stopped growing before she did. 

Brooke had moved into her grandfather’s room years ago, after carefully packing most of his stuff away (something she discussed at length with Dr. Ganache), and tries not to feel like an imposter in his room. This morning, she reminds herself that she’s capable and deserving of her job, capable and deserving of being in his space, capable and deserving of living, and gets out of bed. 

Smoky gray casts a shadow over the window. The rain has slowed to a drizzle, splattering on the roof, and it seems the roads really will clear by Monday. But that still leaves three days of the same gentle water Brooke loves imprisoning her like some princess in a tower.

It’s not being stuck inside that bothers her. Brooke has more than enough food, books, and streaming services to last. It’s the thought of being stuck _with_ someone, mind racing and skin itching with the thought of someone watching her constantly. 

She takes slow, measured breaths and ties a few knots, fears rising out on a steady stream of air. She’ll be polite to Vanessa, they’ll watch TV, and Vanessa will be gone Monday. This whole thing will be just a memory for Brooke, a tiny drop of water in the ocean. A few weeks and she won’t remember the sound of Vanessa’s laugh, how it’s rough and velvety in the same breath. A few months and she’ll probably forget her name, how it’s sweet like chocolate in Brooke’s mouth. 

Brooke flicks through a book, the weight of it as steadying now as it was in her childhood, the idea of all those worlds beneath her fingers making her feel secure, comforted. It was these worlds she escaped to, to have adventures alongside the characters, to pretend she had parents waiting for her like they did. 

“Morning, Brooke!”

 _Alice in Wonderland_ slips into Brooke’s lap as she jumps. 

“Sorry, did I scare you?” Vanessa asks. 

“I’m fine.” Brooke takes a good look at Vanessa, stomach stirring as she does. Vanessa looks stronger today, more vibrant. Her cheeks bloom with rosy life, eyes bright and grin broad. Brooke is so relieved she’s okay, showing no pain from whatever (or whoever) hurt her, that she ignores her ridiculous theory about Vanessa being some sea creature. Vanessa’s okay, and that’s enough. 

She realizes she forgot her medication in her cloud of worry, and notices Vanessa watching. 

“I take medication, I--”

“It makes you feel better?” Vanessa asks. 

“Yeah.” Brooke has bad days occasionally, but when the mental illness was at its worst she couldn’t even get out of bed, could do nothing but lay there and pray for sleep to avoid being conscious. She wouldn’t be able to function without the meds, and she’s not ashamed of it. 

“That’s all that matters,” Vanessa says firmly. “You don’t have to explain anything.”

Brooke nods appreciatively. Her offer of coffee is met with an enthusiastic nod, and Vanessa is practically vibrating with energy as Brooke passes her the lobster mug. It’s a good thing she made decaf. 

Vanessa is at ease in the kitchen, cheerfully eating eggs on toast, and Brooke wonders what it’s like to be so _comfortable_ around others, to say things without turning them over in her mind a hundred times, worrying how they’ll sound. To be the kind of person other people go _toward_ , instead of away from. 

“We gonna watch _Thrones_ today?” Vanessa asks. 

Brooke nods.

Vanessa crunches her last bite of toast. “Let’s go.”

\---

The morning passes quickly, Vanessa letting out whoops and gasps as they move through episodes. It makes Brooke grit her teeth at first, because she always watches things in silence, but when Vanessa screeches about _‘Sharpie Bannister’_ (as she’s renamed Cersei Lannister), Brooke has to laugh. There’s something about watching the shock and excitement play out across Vanessa’s face that’s simply infectious, impossible to resist. 

Vanessa tags along when Brooke climbs the steps for her afternoon light routine. Brooke’s skin prickles as Vanessa watches her. The only person that’s seen her work is her grandfather, and Brooke sweats with worry that she’ll mess up the one thing she’s good at and look like an idiot in front of Vanessa. 

It takes Brooke a few windows to sink back into her rhythm. She can’t really blame Vanessa for staring. Brooke used to observe her grandfather with the same bright-eyed wonder over how his gnarled fingers moved of their own accord, how he didn’t even look where he stepped because his feet knew the way. If Vanessa’s open mouth is any indication, Brooke has perfected his movements, making it all look as natural as breathing, and she bursts with pride. 

“So, how do you know this stuff?” Vanessa asks, motioning for Brooke to sit with her at the base of the light. This close, Brooke can smell her own lavender body wash Vanessa’s been using. “You have a degree in lighthousing?”

Brooke hugs her knees to her chest. “I have a degree in English, actually.” It may have taken her a while to finish it, after a leave of absence because the anxiety and depression grew so severe she couldn’t complete her assignments, but she had finished all the same, with a minor in marine studies. “The lighthouse stuff is from my grandfather. He taught me everything I know.”

“He’s a lighthouse keeper too?”

“He was.”

The silence hangs like a midday sun as Vanessa processes the words.

“I’m sorry, Brooke,” she says softly. Vanessa’s hand curves toward Brooke’s knee before darting back, like she wants to comfort Brooke but isn’t sure she should. Brooke suddenly wants her to, wants to see what Vanessa’s hand feels like, wants its steadying weight. 

“It’s okay,” Brooke says. 

They sit in fog-thick silence and Brooke wonders if she should speak or leave, sink or swim. The air is wide open for her to talk about her grandfather, but she just doesn’t want to. She’s been thinking about him constantly since she found Vanessa, trying to be kind like him, but she selfishly wants to hoard her memories like treasure, not share them. Vanessa doesn’t know how he preferred waffles to pancakes and put cinnamon in the batter, how we let her practice dance recitals in the living room and applauded wildly, how he let bugs go outside rather than kill them, and if Brooke tells her, then the memories aren’t just Brooke’s anymore. It’s like she’s giving part of him away. 

“It’s real cool. This lighthouse stuff, I mean.” Vanessa fills the quiet. “You make it look so easy.”

Brooke shrugs. “I’ve had lots of practice.” Learning it was the best thing for her after losing her parents, and she had thrown herself into it to ease the pain. It gave her something to focus on, something to keep her worried mind occupied. A way to help people get home, like her parents couldn’t.

“Well, it’s beautiful. The way you move and everything.”

Brooke swallows nervously, stomach fluttering like butterflies are running wild. No one’s complimented the way she moves since her dance days. But Vanessa notices the grace Brooke’s always carried, even thinks it’s _beautiful_. The last bit of fear melts away, and Brooke stops thinking of Vanessa as an intruder and starts thinking of her as a fri--acquaintance. It’ll have to do, because there’s no title for ‘nice person that washed up on my lighthouse’. 

“Thank you,” Brooke says finally. “Um, do you like quesadillas? I was thinking of making them for lunch.”

Vanessa grins, exposing bright white teeth. “Of course!”

\---

Vanessa asks if they can play a board game that night, and Brooke brushes the dust of her childhood and pulls out Monopoly. They play on the floor, lantern illuminating the board, the glow highlighting all the different shades of brown--chocolate and hazelnut and mocha--swirling in Vanessa’s eyes. Brooke keeps getting lost in them, and has to tear her gaze away to focus. 

Brooke quickly sees that Vanessa came to _win_ , racking up properties and snatching money from Brooke like a middle-aged banker. But Brooke’s had years of practice, and she takes Vanessa’s money right back, their stacks too high to tell who’s winning. 

Vanessa asks questions while they play, wanting to know Brooke’s favorite foods and colors and movies. Brooke hesitates at first, but what’s the harm in giving these pieces of herself to someone she’ll never see again? So Brooke answers questions and echoes them to Vanessa, hours ticking by like minutes as she learns the colors Vanessa likes to wear, the funny movies she watches to cheer herself up. She talks more with Vanessa in an hour than she does in a week. 

Brooke coughs and sneezes through the game, using a whole box of tissues. Not changing her clothes after finding Vanessa is catching up with her. When Brooke sneezes so hard it sends paper money fluttering, Vanessa’s eyes flicker to her in concern.

“You gettin’ sick?” Vanessa asks. 

Brooke shrugs. “Probably a cold. Happens a lot near the water.” Brooke often got sick as a kid because of how cold and damp it was by the sea. Her grandfather would set up a makeshift bed on the couch, tell her stories, and let her watch anything she wanted, a _Star Wars_ marathon making the coughing and sneezing and bitter cherry medicine almost bearable. 

Brooke can’t help but wonder what it would be like to have Vanessa sitting at her side, telling her stories. 

\---

Brooke is _definitely_ sick when Saturday morning rolls around, her head cloudy like it’s stuffed with cotton, tissue after tissue chafing her raw nose.

The rain is still trickling down, mocking the weather reports that said it would stop by Friday. The new report is predicting Sunday.

Brooke shuffles into the kitchen and sees Vanessa sipping coffee and looking so _right_ at the table. Brooke’s never considered her kitchen _empty_ before, but Vanessa makes it full.

“You’re sick!” Vanessa yelps with worry. Vanessa is _worried_ about her, is _upset_ that she’s sick, and maybe it’s the illness making Brooke’s thoughts fuzzy, but she’s grateful Vanessa is here, grateful to have someone worried for her. 

“I’m fine. Just a cold.”

Vanessa’s hand stretches up to her forehead before Brooke can stop it. She figures it’s rude to push Vanessa away, and her touch is soothing, so Brooke leaves it. 

“I don’t think you have a fever,” Vanessa says, hand lingering longer than necessary.

“It’s just a cold,” Brooke repeats, wracked with a sudden shiver from the loss of contact. 

“Well, why don’t you lie down?” It’s an order more than a suggestion, and Brooke gives in, too tired to argue despite the strangeness of it all. No one has cared for her like this in years. She usually just took medicine and went on with her day, no one even knowing she was sick, and Vanessa seating her on the couch and buzzing with concern spreads affectionate warmth through Brooke’s chest. Some part of Brooke likes it, likes having someone take care of her when she’s done it alone for so long. And some part of her likes that the someone is Vanessa. 

Vanessa carefully drapes a blanket over Brooke, watching her with such tenderness and adoration it makes her ache with a sudden longing to hold Vanessa. The cold is really messing with her head. Vanessa brings her cold meds, cough drops, and extra tissues before settling into the armchair and starting the next episode. 

Brooke’s eyelids grow heavy after the theme song, and she drifts off into a warm sleep punctuated with dreams of sailing with Vanessa. 

A gentle hand nudges her shoulder, and Brooke blinks awake to see Vanessa, bowl of steaming soup in her hands. Brooke’s mind lags as she processes the scene. Vanessa made her soup. Vanessa took the time to go through her pantry and cupboards just to make soup to help her feel better. It’s been seven years since someone cooked for her. Brooke’s eyes dampen at the corners (it’s probably the cold).

“S-sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you,” Brooke says, sitting up and eating a spoonful. 

“Don’t worry about it. You need sleep when you’re sick.” Vanessa pauses. “Anything else I can do? Call a doctor or somethin’?” 

“I don’t need a doctor for a cold,” Brooke says, melting at how concerned Vanessa is. “Soup and meds are enough. You didn’t have to do all this for me,” she adds, looking down at the bowl. 

“I want to,” Vanessa says firmly. “You got sick ‘cause of me.”

Brooke shakes her head. “I was only outside a few minutes getting you. I didn’t change my wet clothes after. That’s my fault, not yours.”

“Still,” Vanessa insists. “It’s the least I could do.”

Vanessa tucks a strand of hair behind Brooke’s ear and Brooke has no air in her lungs. Her whole face tingles, and she wishes she could grab Vanessa’s hand and put it on her cheek, let the warmth rest there forever, an eternal flame to keep Brooke warm. 

The day is cozy and carefree, but there’s something bugging Brooke, swirling below the water like a predator. It’s not until Vanessa gives her more cold meds that night that it hits her: Vanessa isn’t sick. Vanessa was sailing in a thunderstorm, thrown into the icy sea, left in the rain all night, and doesn’t have so much as a sniffle. 

Brooke would say it isn’t humanly possible, but it’s true. Unless… 

No. She needs to stop with her theories. It’s probably just the grayness of the world affecting her judgement. Some urge to keep her grandfather alive, to put a wild story in everything she sees. 

It’s a quiet night, Vanessa more hushed than usual, a mug of hot chocolate making Brooke full and sleepy, electing to sleep on the couch because she’s too comfortable under her fleece blankets to move. 

Vanessa heads to bed with a soft _‘feel better, Brooke’_ tumbling from her lips and soothing Brooke’s skin like hot water, but when Brooke wakes the next morning, Vanessa is back in the chair, watching over Brooke like a tower watching over ships. When Brooke asks her about it, Vanessa just says she wanted to make sure Brooke was okay.

\---

The weather report was right, and Sunday is the first dry day in what feels like years, the world bathed a delicate gray-blue as the public works crew clears the roads. Vanessa radiates her own sun in the lighthouse, growing more exuberant by the hour. 

Vanessa wasn’t exactly _quiet_ before, but she bursts with renewed energy over waffles that morning. She makes Brooke take more medicine and drinks two cups of coffee with a pound of sugar, asks (commands) Brooke if they can make brownies, and eats three of said brownies in one sitting. 

“You know any stories?” Vanessa asks that night. “Sailors always tell stories in the movies. And lighthouses are good places for stories, all spooky and shit.”

Brooke has to agree. The night is perfect, orange fire glowing against the pitch-black darkness outside, wind rattling the windows like a monster begging to be let in, she and Vanessa trading smiles over mugs of hot chocolate, blankets wrapped around their shoulders. It’s nights like these that Brooke believes the legends with all her heart, the world so alive with magic they _had_ to be real. 

“I know some old legends about sirens and mermaids and stuff,” Brooke suggests. 

Vanessa flinches so quickly Brooke might have imagined it, an unreadable expression settling over her features. 

“Sure,” Vanessa agrees. “Maybe somethin’ happy, or romantic?”

Most legends were darker than the depths of the ocean, used as terrifying warnings to respect whatever creatures lived in the sea so they didn’t kill you, but Brooke searches for something at least a little happy. 

“Sit by the fire with me?” Brooks asks, heart thumping. 

Vanessa’s eyes twinkle brighter than ever in the firelight, and Brooke’s not sure if her face is burning from the fire or Vanessa’s knee pressing against hers. 

Brooke clears her throat. Her ears are full of her grandfather’s voice, deep and rich as the sea. She can hear him clearly tonight, in her spot on the rug that used to be his, and she knows he speaks with her when she begins. 

“Once upon a time--”

“This some kinda fairytale?” Vanessa interrupts.

Brooke shoots her the same look Vanessa gives Joffrey on-screen. It must work, because Vanessa bursts into giggles. 

“Okay, okay, keep going.”

“Once upon a time, there lived a lonely young woman named Arabella. Her father was a lighthouse keeper. He told her mermaids lived in the sea, and every day, Arabella went to the water’s edge, hoping to see one. But none ever turned up.

“One day, a mermaid named Cordelia swam to shore. She had been watching Arabella, but was too shy to see her. Cordelia had hair like spun gold and eyes of sapphire. Some said the ocean herself had made her eyes. Arabella fell in love instantly. But she couldn’t breathe underwater, and Cordelia couldn’t walk on land, so Arabella took her boat out while Cordelia swam beside her. 

“As the days passed, their love grew like the waves. They were so in love, neither noticed they were going farther and farther into the ocean. Soon, they were at the cove of the murderous sirens, falsely promising people their heart’s desires and drowning them. 

Vanessa’s hands fly over her mouth. She leans closer, eager to hear what happens next, and Brooke surges with pride. 

“Arabella’s desire was to breathe underwater, and Cordelia’s desire was to walk on land. The siren queen, Marina--”

“It’s Marilla,” Vanessa says. “The siren queen. Marilla, not Marina.”

The crackling fire is the only sound in the room. 

“You-you’re right,” Brooke says. “Marina is the mermaid queen, I always mix them up. I just--how did you know?” She’s not judging or doubting Vanessa, just curious. Most legends have died out. 

“I...I think I read it in one of your books when you were sick,” Vanessa says. 

“Oh. Anyway, Marilla promised them their desires, and they were pulled beneath the waves. But Marina, the mermaid queen, didn’t want the lovers to perish. She convinced Marilla to grant their wishes, but at a cost.

“She allowed Arabella to breathe underwater for one hour each dawn, and allowed Cordelia to walk on land for one hour each dusk. But if they met any other time, or stayed longer than an hour, they would be cursed with eternal solitude. 

“They obeyed. Cordelia stayed beneath the sea, longing for the hour she could feel sand between her toes. Arabella stayed on land, longing for the hour when the water flowed around her. The two hours they were together each day were the happiest in both their lives. They met every day, even as old age meant Cordelia had to hold Arabella in the water and help her walk on land. They stayed in love until Arabella died, and Marina released Cordelia’s soul, so their spirits could be together for eternity.”

Vanessa’s mouth opens and closes a few times before she can speak. 

“Wow, Brooke,” Vanessa breathes. “You should have people come here on tours and tell them stories. You’re really, really good at it.”

Brooke beams with joy. It’s a small compliment, but it means more than Vanessa knows. Her grandfather could have an entire room biting their nails in suspense, hanging on his every word. Brooke has never told a story to anyone, and not only is she good at it, she _loves_ it. Loves the rush of bringing words to life, of having Vanessa so close that Brooke could just reach out and touch her, maybe even _kiss_ her--

“Thanks. Someone asked me about doing tours before, actually. I said no.”

“Why?”

“Just...didn’t want anyone inside.” Brooke confesses. 

“I get that,” Vanessa says. “This place is special to you. If you don’t want to do tours, that’s fine. I’d just hate to see you say no because of fear.”

How could Vanessa understand her fears so effortlessly? Brooke loves the history of the lighthouse, how it’s served ships for centuries. Maybe, if she works hard with Dr. Ganache, she could feel safe enough to let people in and share that history. 

“I’m headin’ to bed.” Vanessa yawns. “Thanks for the story.” 

“Sure.”

Brooke lingers behind, curiosity driving her to the book of myths on the coffee table. She checks twice, but there’s no mention of Marilla.

\--- 

“Is that the _sun?_ ” Vanessa asks Monday morning, jaw dropping open. 

“I think so.” Brooke smiles. 

Vanessa whistles. “Damn. I thought I ended up on some planet with no sun! Can we see the town today?” She asks, bouncing in her chair. 

“Okay.” 

Three days ago, Brooke would have been out the door at the crack of dawn to get Vanessa on the earliest train home. But somehow, between the daily meals and board games and stories, Brooke has grown _comfortable_ with Vanessa, smiling whenever Vanessa laughs, passing dishes to the left for Vanessa to dry without thinking, her heart softening every time their soap-slick hands brush against each other. There’s a certain ease between them, one Brooke didn’t think she’d have with anyone but her grandfather. 

Even when they watch TV, Brooke finds herself turning to Vanessa during big reveals, to see Vanessa’s eyes widen and her jaw drop, revelling in the knowledge that she’s not alone, that someone is sharing it with her. She smiles when Vanessa does the same, trying to discern spoilers from Brooke’s expression and gloating when her predictions are right. 

Brooke’s heart is heavy over Vanessa leaving, and she wants to make an amazing day for her, one she’ll remember even after returning to the bright city lights. 

Brooke thinks of what Vanessa might enjoy in town. Brooke has always liked the main street of Cape Charles, how the cheery shops smiled at her even when most of the owners didn’t, turning their noses up at the crazy lighthouse keeper. But she can take Vanessa to the diner, and the bookstore, where Brooke used to need a stool to reach the shelves until her growth spurt hit and her bones screamed as she shot up eight inches in a year. 

She wonders what it will be like to have feet beside hers on the cobblestones again, to eat with someone across the booth again, to see another reflection in the shop windows.

“D-do you want to have breakfast? There's a really good diner on Main Street.”

“You ain’t gotta ask me twice!” 

Being cooped up must be hard for Vanessa, Brooke guesses. Vanessa lives in the city, where she could do anything at any time. Brooke has never liked the dizziness or buzz of the city, how easily you could get lost with no one to even care about finding you. Even when she took classes in the college there, she would ride the commuter train, take her usual walk to campus, and return the same way, never straying for fear of getting lost in a sea of concrete, no light to guide her home (it was a relief when she found out two years in that she could finish her degree online). She hasn’t returned to the city since that bad day when her grandfather died. 

“Hey, Brooke?” Vanessa snaps Brooke out of her thoughts. “You got anything I could wear that’s not a wool sweater? Don’t get me wrong, they cute on you, but I don’t think they’re working for me.”

“Of course.”

Vanessa in her house is strange enough, but having Vanessa in her room, her big brown eyes roaming across the bed where Brooke sleeps and the photos linking Brooke to the past, makes Brooke feel like her entire being is on display, like Vanessa can see right through her. 

“And I thought your wool stuff was out of control!” Vanessa exclaims. 

Brooke smothers a laugh at the array of flannel shirts hanging in her closet. 

“I do have a lot of wool and flannel, huh?” They’re Brooke’s favorites because of the coziness, protecting her from the cold sea air. 

“Well, they look good on you.”

It’s the second time Vanessa’s said she looks nice, Brooke notes. She wonders if it means anything, if Vanessa’s heart squeezes when she looks at Brooke like Brooke’s does when she looks at Vanessa. She also wonders if it means anything that she thinks Vanessa is beautiful in anything. 

“Your jeans are longer than my whole body,” Vanessa mutters. “What are you, like, six-five?”

“Five-ten.”

“Shit.”

Brooke laughs. She’d put Vanessa at five-three, if that, and she likes how tiny Vanessa is, how Brooke’s clothes make her even tinier and more adorable. 

“This coat is cool.” Vanessa nods at the navy coat in Brooke’s closet. 

“I’ll show you if you want,” Brooke offers. 

It’s her grandfather’s lighthouse keeper coat, navy with brass buttons, done in the old style. He took excellent care of it and it’s impeccable, heavy and warm like his hugs. Brooke used to put it on as a kid, giggling as it dragged on the floor and thinking she’d never be big enough or good enough to fill it. But she’d inherited his height as well as his eyes, and when she put it on a year after he died, the coat fit her like it was meant to do nothing else. She had taken it as a permission of sorts, some sign from the universe that she was worthy of wearing it, of running the lighthouse. That she would be okay on her own. 

“What’s the _K_ for?” Vanessa asks, pointing to the gold loops embroidered on the lapel, neat _K’_ s stitched inside. 

“For keeper.”

“You sure are.”

Brooke flushes as red as a warning sky, and busies herself finding clothes for Vanessa, grabbing a red sweatshirt since it’s Vanessa’s favorite color, and leggings so she won’t trip on any pant hems. Brooke takes jeans and a navy fisherman’s sweater for herself and changes in the bathroom.

Vanessa is fully dressed when she gets back, gazing at the pictures on Brooke’s dresser. “This your grandpa?”

“Yeah.”

“You have his eyes. They look like the sea.” Vanessa smiles. “I bet he was kind like you too.”

“He was.” It’s all she can manage, tears hovering on the horizon. Whenever she was upset, all she had to do was look at him and she knew things would be okay. All she’s ever wanted is to be like him, to be good and dedicated, a beacon of hope for people. 

Nina says Brooke is like him, but Nina knew her grandfather, saw Brooke’s similarities to him emerge, and Nina is always nice. But Vanessa doesn’t know her grandfather. She barely knows Brooke. She has no reason to say it, no idea how much it means. For her to think Brooke resembles the man who was her guiding light for so long is irrefutable proof that Brooke is like him, is maybe as good as him, and it warms her heart like a fire. She’s never been more grateful for Vanessa. 

“Do you miss him?” Vanessa asks, cringing a second later. “Shit, sorry, you don’t have to answer. Don’t mind my nosy ass.”

“I do,” Brooke says. “He--he was a great person. One of the best.” It’s gotten better over the years, the wound receding to a dull pain, one she sometimes can’t even feel. But then she’ll do something that tugs on the scar tissue, like looking at his picture a second too long or making waffles that taste _almost_ exactly like his, but not quite, and the pain comes roaring back anew.

“Hey,” Vanessa says gently, wiping a tear from Brooke’s cheek, one she didn’t know had fallen. Vanessa is so close Brooke just wants to wrap her in a hug. She wants Vanessa’s head against her chest, wants to bury her face in Vanessa’s hair, wants Vanessa to feel her heart beating. “Let’s go eat.”

\---

Nina almost drops her pen when she sees Vanessa next to Brooke. Brooke’s mouth dries out as she struggles for an explanation.

“I’m an old friend of Brooke’s,” Vanessa supplies smoothly. “Just visiting for a few days.”

Vanessa and Nina carry on like actual old friends as Nina takes them to a booth, and Brooke isn’t surprised. Nina can make friends with a wall, and Brooke doesn’t know anyone who wouldn’t love her in seconds. 

“So,” Vanessa says, peeking over her menu with a grin, “what’s good here?”

“I always get the apple-cinnamon pancakes,” Brooke says. 

“ _Always_ always?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t ever wanna change it up?” Vanessa asks in confusion. 

Brooke lowers her head, heat creeping up her neck. “I don’t like change,” she admits. Change had been a police officer’s scuffed black boots in a cheery kindergarten classroom. Change had been an unknown number calling from the city, saying her grandfather was in critical condition. 

“I know change can be scary,” Vanessa says softly. “But what if you did just a little one? Like, what if you still get pancakes, but with”--Vanessa scans the menu--“bananas instead?” 

Maybe Vanessa is right. Dr. Ganache had said a routine would be helpful when Brooke began her recovery, but she should never feel trapped by it. Brooke’s been sticking to it so long she’s never considered if it’s guiding her or forcing her, protecting her or caging her. 

Brooke knows bananas aren’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things. She knows her palms shouldn’t be sweating. But if she doesn’t have apples, does that mean the day won’t go like it should? Will it make something bad happen? What if she did something different on those bad days, like eating raspberry jam on her toast instead of strawberry, and that was why the bad things happened?

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Vanessa says quickly. 

“I want to.”

Brooke’s fork shakes a bit when the banana walnut pancakes arrive, but they’re just as delicious as the apple ones, and Brooke doesn’t think anything bad can happen with Vanessa smiling at her, eating hash browns.

“So, Miss English Degree, you ever read that book about the big-ass whale?”

“You mean _Moby Dick_?” Brooke snorts. 

“Yeah! With Captain Abfab!”

“ _Ahab_.” Brooke giggles. “And I did. It’s kinda gay, actually. Melville was basically in love with Nathaniel Hawthorne. He wrote him a letter saying their hearts beat in each other’s ribs.”

“That’s romantic as hell.” Vanessa’s eyes are bright with admiration. 

Brooke lets herself dream of writing letters to Vanessa, pressing kisses to the envelope.

Next in line is A’keria’s boutique. It takes all of ten seconds for Vanessa and A’keria to cackle in unison and talk about clothes. Maybe Vanessa _is_ magic, just not how Brooke thought. Being so open with people, winning them over with a few words, is certainly its own magic, one Brooke has never been skilled in. 

Vanessa squeals in delight when they drive past Monet and Monique’s Clam Shack. “Oohh, can we stop there?” she asks, wriggling in her seat like a toddler. She sticks her head out the window to read the specialties advertised on the sign. “Are you one of those ‘we have food at home’ people? ‘Cause my mom used to--” Vanessa cuts herself off abruptly, shaking her head like she’s trying to clear water out of her ears, or maybe a memory out of her mind. Her smile flies back. “Look, they have fried shrimp, that’s your favorite!”

Brooke takes a second to respond around the lump in her throat, because no one has known her favorite food or wanted her to have it in seven years. It makes Brooke’s face warm, almost impossibly so, given the cold air blasting through Vanessa’s window.

“Fried shrimp it is.”

\---

“Brooke?” Vanessa asks, looking up from her fried shrimp.

“Yeah?”

“Can I pay you back somehow? I mean, you saved me, and let me stay with you, and bought my food, and I...aren’t I in your debt?”

Brooke’s heart breaks at Vanessa’s earnestness. Was she not used to people being kind to her? Brooke could never make Vanessa give her anything back, especially when she’s just as much in Vanessa’s debt. How can Brooke explain that the past days have been a gift to her, one she can never repay? 

“There’s no debt. There never will be,” Brooke says firmly. “I _wanted_ to help you. I don’t want anything in return.”

Vanessa’s hand slides across the table, fingers curling around Brooke’s. “Thank you, Brooke. Really.”

Brooke grips Vanessa’s hand like she would grip a sailing rope to keep herself steady at sea, her body coming to life at the warm touch. “Of course. You’re my guest, for as long as you want.”

“I was thinkin’ about that, actually,” Vanessa begins. “I don’t have to be back in the city till Monday. And I like y--like it here, and I’m so grateful for you, and if it’s okay, do you think I could stay till Saturday?” 

_You could stay forever_ , Brooke thinks. A lifetime of board games and cooking together, of movies and morning coffee, of breathing salt air and watching the tides ebb and flow. Autumns tinted gold and springs tinted green, crunching on leaves and splashing in rain puddles. Winters of snowflakes sticking to windows and melting in your hair, a crackling fire and soft blankets. Summers of fresh blueberries and walks on the sand, the sunset so close you could touch it, fill your hands with its buttery light. 

“I’d like that,” Brooke says. 

\---

Last week, four days had seemed like an eternity. Now, Brooke has five more days with Vanessa, and they aren’t enough for everything she wants to do. 

Brooke’s heart has a crack in it, the first crack in a ship that leads to disaster as more and more water flows in. Each day that crack widens, another realization slipping inside and dragging her whole body down. How she won’t see Vanessa’s smile anymore. How the couch will be empty, not even a dent in the cushion where Vanessa sits. 

They go bowling, and Brooke laughs till she cries over Vanessa’s hunched stance, rolling the ball with both hands and one time shooting it into another lane. They rack up tickets at the arcade and earn a Cape Charles pencil ( _‘300 tickets and all we get is a_ pencil?’ Vanessa rages). Vanessa wins a stuffed dolphin at the claw machine and gives it to Brooke. Brooke has slept with it every night since, holding it to her chest and pretending it’s Vanessa. 

Every time Brooke burns from people’s stares, wondering why the ghost was released from her tower, Vanessa shoots them a death glare until they back off, reminding Brooke she doesn’t need to concern herself with them. 

They finish _Game of Thrones_ , Vanessa screaming about how they did her girl Dany dirty, and start on the Ghibli collection, wordlessly passing the tissue box to each other when Sophie puts Howl’s heart back into his chest. 

Brooke relishes the brushing of their arms as they make dinner, Vanessa tossing croutons into the air and catching them in her mouth. Brooke loves putting the food on the table knowing the meal is something they created with their hands working together, trying to ignore that her future meals will be made with two hands, not four. 

Before she knows it, it’s Friday night, and Brooke is trying to keep it together. She cooks Vanessa’s favorite foods, rice and beans with shrimp, plus salad, garlic bread, and chocolate cake. 

They talk like they do every night, but Brooke has always been sensitive to change, and the air is different, thick with the knowledge that this is the last time, that there won’t be another dinner. 

Brooke cuts the cake, and halfway through the first slice she realizes that she’ll have leftover cake and there won’t be anyone to share it with. This cake that she and Vanessa made will belong to Brooke alone, its frosting hardening and crumb drying with only one fork to eat it. 

She looks at Vanessa’s lobster mug, irreparably labeling it _Vanessa’s_ , and knows she won’t be able to look at it again without picturing Vanessa’s slim fingers wrapped around it, tossing her head back with laughter. 

The crack in her heart widens into a chasm. All the sorrow over Vanessa leaving, the emptiness that will consume her after Vanessa’s gone, rush into Brooke’s heart until it sinks to the ocean floor, never to see sunlight again. 

_Stay_ , Brooke thinks but doesn’t say. _Please stay_. Her chest aches, and she thinks her ribs are throbbing with the pulse of Vanessa’s heart as well as her own. 

But she can’t ask Vanessa to stay, stop her from returning to a life more exciting than this, to fabrics shinier than wool and flannel, to more restaurants and stores than she could count. 

She can’t ask no matter how badly she wants to.

Brooke doesn’t do this. She doesn’t get attached. Dr. Ganache says she has a fear of abandonment, that she isolates herself as an unhealthy coping mechanism. She doesn’t form relationships, doesn’t even try, because her mind is trying to keep her safe, denying her any connection to spare her the pain of that connection’s loss. 

You can’t lose someone if you don’t know them, let yourself get close to them. And Brooke has learned more about Vanessa, gotten closer with her, than she has let herself do with anyone else since her grandfather died. 

She knows that Vanessa always buys the Rainbow Room in Monopoly just because she likes rainbows. She knows that Vanessa stops dead in the street to pet dogs, like Brooke used to. She knows Vanessa dances every chance she gets. She knows Vanessa has brought her places she hasn’t visited in years, has shielded her from people’s stares and kept her safe like a lighthouse tower.

“I have something for you,” Brooke says after cake, handing Vanessa the bracelet she made from ropes on her grandfather’s old boat.

“It’s a sailor knot,” Brooke explains. “Sailors wore them at sea. It’s supposed to bring good luck and protection on your travels.”

Vanessa is silent as she runs her fingers over the bracelet, tracing the fibers like she can feel the ocean clinging to them. 

Brooke takes a breath. “Vanessa, um, I really liked having you here, and if you ever want to come back…” Tears stream down Vanessa’s face, and Brooke’s heart shatters. “I’m sorry! Did I do something wrong? Are you okay?”

The panic claws at Brooke, heart racing, each breath frantic as Vanessa’s tears thicken. Brooke wants to cry herself over seeing Vanessa so upset, and she struggles to stay above the tide of fear. Finally, Vanessa shakes her head, like she’s answering her own question. 

“I can’t do this anymore, Brooke.” Her voice runs deep with sorrow, but Brooke is so relieved she’s talking that she manages to get air into her lungs, heart slowing. “I can’t keep lying to you.”

“What do you mean?” Brooke has ignored Vanessa’s obvious lies and refusal to talk about her life in the city, but the questions always lurk in her mind. Is she finally going to find out what happened? Is Vanessa running from something? Is--

Vanessa sighs. “I’m a siren.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, please comment if you'd like! Also, I've taken too many English classes not to cite my source, so the article about the Melville to Hawthorne letter can be found here: https://www.brainpickings.org/2019/02/13/herman-melville-nathaniel-hawthorne-love-letters/


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously: Brooke and Vanessa grew closer together and Vanessa told Brooke she’s a siren  
> Now: We hear Vanessa’s story

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3 is here! Thank you so much to everyone who commented, it means so much to me to read your feedback! I would love it if you could leave some on this chapter! Thank you so much to Writ for betaing and helping me with this, you’re just the best. 
> 
> *I do want to add that the discussions of death and mental illness are a bit more intense in this chapter, so be cautious*

_She was right_. 

It’s the first thought that pops into Brooke’s head as Vanessa looks up at her fearfully. 

_She was right_. 

“You’re a siren,” Brooke repeats, calm as a still sea, somewhat vindicated, because all the signs she’d noticed had been real, not just her imagination. How Vanessa survived the journey here mostly unscathed, bruises vanishing in less than a day. How Vanessa was ready to cart her off to a hospital over a cold, because sirens were immune to illness and Vanessa, especially if she had been one for a long time, wouldn’t be used to seeing it. How Vanessa knew obscure siren queens from centuries-old tales. 

But, strangely, having it confirmed isn’t as satisfying as she thought it would be. Maybe because it feels wrong somehow. The legends of sirens--always vindictive and cruel--don’t match the person Brooke has come to know, who took care of her when she was sick and threw extra bread out for the birds. Or maybe Brooke just doesn’t care, likes Vanessa so much that not even being a siren can turn her away. 

“Yes,” Vanessa says. “But I...I didn’t want to be, Brooke.”

“What do you mean?”

Vanessa sighs. “It’s kind of a long story.”

Brooke shrugs. “I heard lighthouses are good places for stories.” 

It brings a small smile to Vanessa’s face, the fear leaving her eyes and replaced with hope. No matter what happens, it makes Brooke feel so _good_ , so warm inside, that she can make Vanessa smile. 

“Can we sit by the fire?” Vanessa asks, Brooke’s stomach somersaulting when she hears her offer from a few nights ago flipped right back at her.

“Of course.”

They resume their positions, knees touching, eyes roaming each other’s faces, the promise of a story making the fire glow brighter. 

Vanessa bites her lip and takes a deep breath. 

“It’s okay,” Brooke soothes. “You can tell me anything, I promise.”

Vanessa nods, staring into the fire with a look so smoldering it could reduce the flame to ash.

“My parents died when I was 12,” she begins. “Some aunt I was related to moved us to the city a few months later. I was kinda glad to leave home. Just too many memories there, you know?”

Brooke nods. She inhales memories and sea salt with every breath here. 

“I was out across the cape one day, on this little isle. I think it was eight years ago now. I was 16. I didn’t...I didn’t know about them.”

“The sirens,” Brooke guesses.

“Yeah. They sang to me. It was the most beautiful thing I ever heard. They told me they could bring my parents back. All I had to do was swim out to them, and I’d have my parents again.”

Vanessa sighs, eyes watering, and Brooke’s eyes fill too, despite her confusion. If Vanessa is here, that means she survived the sirens. But no one _ever_ survived. She leans in closer, eager for Vanessa to continue. 

“I knew it wasn’t right somehow, but I couldn’t stop listening, couldn’t fight it. I believed every word they sang to me. I swam out to them, and the waves were huge, and the water was spinning, but I got there. I didn’t drown, and I thought I would have my parents. But they trapped me instead.” She shakes her head bitterly. “I was 16. I should’ve known better.”

“Vanessa,” Brooke breathes, taking her hand on instinct, rubbing her thumb in circles to soothe her. “You couldn’t have fought their power, it’s not your fault.”

“I know.” she sniffles, and Brooke carefully wipes her tears away, keeping her touch as gentle as possible. “They said I had to stay with them, or they would kill me.”

“I’m so sorry,” Brooke says softly. She can’t imagine what Vanessa’s been through, trapped on a cove full of evil sirens and forced to live with them for years, when she was hardly more than a kid. She wishes she could do more than wipe Vanessa’s tears, wishes she could take all the pain away entirely so Vanessa never had to suffer again. 

Vanessa smiles suddenly. “Here’s where things get a little weird,” she says. 

“I can handle weird,” Brooke promises. 

Vanessa inches closer, her hip against Brooke’s. Brooke decides to take the chance and wraps her arm around Vanessa, pulling her close and keeping her safe. Vanessa nestles deeper into the hollow of Brooke’s flannel-covered shoulder. It’s a perfect fit, as if the same waves that carried Vanessa to the lighthouse are carrying them to each other. 

“I saw you before,” Vanessa says. “Six years ago. I was on the rocks by myself, and I saw you on a boat.”

 _Six years ago_ , Brooke thinks. She remembers sailing six years ago, because it was the last time she took the boat out. She always loved sailing, loved the wind in her hair and preparing the sails and tying the knots, but she stopped going after her grandfather died. It had been Dr. Ganache’s idea to take the boat out a year after he passed, thinking it might help her. But it just made Brooke sad, so sad she covered the boat up that day and let dust coat it like moss. 

Vanessa takes another breath. “So, the siren queen gives you the power to see people’s desires to lure them in. But when I looked at you, all I could sense was how badly your heart was hurting. It made _me_ hurt, that’s how strong it was. And I made myself go back inside the cove, because I couldn’t hurt you more than you were. I just couldn’t.”

Brooke contemplates how close she had been to being pulled under the tide. If the sirens had promised her family back, Brooke would have jumped in head first even if she knew better. She understands the same desperation Vanessa felt, the sense that you had to listen, had to swim to them. But Vanessa had saved her. Vanessa had been able to resist using her almighty power to keep Brooke safe, even though she didn’t know her. 

“We couldn’t leave the island, but I’m a troublemaker, so I found a way around the rules,” Vanessa giggles proudly. “I went out just far enough so a fisherman could catch me in his net. He roughed me up a little, but I jumped over the side. I was free.”

“But how did you get here?” Brooke asks, trying to piece it all together, her anger over the man hurting Vanessa, making her bruise, fading in favor of awe. Vanessa had survived the sirens _and_ outsmarted them. Legends should be told about her.

“I knew there was a little town across the cape, I just didn’t know where. So I just swam in the freaking rain, stuck in that damn net, and then this bright-ass light shows up outta nowhere. I thought the Lord was coming for me, let me tell you.”

Brooke snorts with laughter, her fear and anger replaced with pure joy, joy at having Vanessa here, at her having survived. 

“So I followed the light,” Vanessa continues. “And where do I end up but in your damn lighthouse.” She turns to Brooke with an affectionate smile. “Took me a while to realize it was you, but I did it.”

“Guess I wasn’t memorable enough.” Brooke teases. 

“Oh, you were. I remember seeing them arms of yours across the cove.” Vanessa reaches her hand over to grip Brooke’s bicep. Brooke’s arm tingles, her whole face burning like lava. 

“I wasn’t gonna tell you. Figured I’d just stay till the rain stopped and leave, even though I don’t have anything to go home to. But you were so nice, taking care of me and shit, and you didn’t want anythin’ back, and I just...I wanted you to know,” Vanessa finishes, wrapping her arm around Brooke’s back. 

“I’m glad you told me,” Brooke says. Vanessa must really trust her to share this, and it makes Brooke feel special, cared for, that Vanessa wants her to know. 

“Me too. I guess I knew you’d understand.”

“So, do you still have your...magic? Powers? Whatever the term is?” Brooke asks. 

Vanessa shakes her head. “We lose them a little bit at a time when we leave the island. I can’t read people’s desires anymore, or lure them in. My healing powers are working, but they’ll fade in a bit. But I’m happy with it. It’s like I’m _me_ again. I like just being me.”

“I like you being you too,” Brooke blurts out. Her heart nearly skips into her throat at the admission, but there’s relief in having it out there, in letting Vanessa know, though the words aren’t all she wants to say. 

She wants to tell Vanessa that being herself is enough, that she doesn’t need magic, because she _is_ magic. The way she makes Brooke’s heart stir and warms the room even during a cold rain is just proof of how special Vanessa is all on her own, and she’s glad Vanessa is comfortable in her skin again. Brooke would never ask Vanessa to be anything other than herself, and she wants to tell her, but the moment passes like a sunstorm. 

“I’d like to hear you sing sometime,” Brooke says instead. 

“Trust me, you don’t.”

“A siren who can’t sing?” Brooke giggles. 

“My momma used to say I sound like a bullfrog!” Vanessa exclaims. It’s the first time she’s actually mentioned her mom, and Brooke knows it’s a product of this new trust between them, a trust that can’t be broken. 

“She sounds funny,” Brooke ventures.

“She was.” Vanessa smiles. “She could always cheer you up, you know? I really miss her sometimes.”

Brooke tilts her head to rest against Vanessa’s, breathing in the scent of her own apple shampoo that smells better in Vanessa’s wavy hair. 

“It’s okay to miss them,” Brooke says quietly. It’s one of the main things she’s learned in therapy, that there’s no shame in missing someone or feeling sad. You just couldn’t let it consume you, and Brooke has worked hard in overcoming that, in not letting the sadness eat her up alive. 

“You were young when your parents died,” Vanessa says. It’s not a question. 

“Yeah. I--” Brooke cuts herself off. “Sorry, I don’t want to make the conversation about me.”

“Hey. _Hey_. None of that,” Vanessa says firmly. “We talkin’, okay? You can talk about yourself.”

Brooke steels herself, digging for the words her mind desperately wants to hold on to.

“I--I know it wasn’t, but sometimes I feel like it’s my fault they died,” Brooke confesses, unburying the words and casting them out to sea. 

“What do you mean it was your fault?” Vanessa asks softly. “I’m sure that’s not true.”

Brooke remembers the _thud_ of the police officer’s boots, how her teacher’s hand went over her mouth when the officer mentioned an accident, the words circling over and over in Brooke’s mind. 

An accident meant it was no one’s fault, but Brooke wanted it to be someone’s fault. She wanted someone to blame for taking her parents from her. 

And eventually, she decided there was no one to blame but herself. 

“I wanted a dog for my birthday,” Brooke begins, eyes gazing into the flames. “I begged and begged for weeks. On my birthday, they took the day off work and went into the city, and I knew they were going to get my dog.” She swallows hard. “They got in a car accident, because I made them leave the cape for my present. If I...if I asked for something else, the accident would have never happened. They wouldn’t have died.”

“Oh, Brooke. It wasn’t your fault. You listen to me. It wasn’t your fault.” Vanessa pulls her into a hug and Brooke lets herself be calmed by the arms wrapped around her. Dr. Ganache has told Brooke it’s not her fault countless times in the past seven years, but there’s something about hearing it from Vanessa that makes it really sink in. 

“I know it wasn’t my fault, I know it. But sometimes my brain won’t listen.”

“Your brain’s a lying hoe,” Vanessa says, and Brooke dissolves into a fit of laughter. “I’m serious!” Vanessa says around her own laughs, tightening her hold on Brooke. “It’s not your fault.” She pauses. “And Brooke?”

“Yeah?”

“I know it’s hard sometimes, but your heart’s doing a lot better than it was on that boat.”

“I thought you didn’t have your powers anymore,” Brooke says thickly, Vanessa’s words proving that she’s okay, that she really is better. That all her work in therapy has helped, that the heart that once felt made of broken glass has reformed and firmed up, capable of feeling again. 

“I don’t need them to know that.”

Vanessa slips her hand into Brooke’s, and slips herself permanently into Brooke’s heart.

They stay wrapped up together as the fire dies out. Brooke doesn’t want to move, wants Vanessa’s hand in hers forever, wants their bodies to always have a home with each other. She wants Vanessa to stay, but how can she ask? What could she even say that wouldn’t sound desperate?

“Vanessa, I…” but she looks down and sees Vanessa’s head drooping, clearly seconds from sleep if not there already. 

Brooke would sing a lullaby or an old sailing song, but she can’t trust her voice to work when this is one of her last moments with Vanessa, the first and last time she’ll hold her like this, the last time she’ll feel both their heartbeats. Instead, she hums the lullaby from _Pan’s Labyrinth_ , carrying Vanessa to bed and tucking her in after she drifts off. 

\---

Brooke paces her room, mind moving too fast to stay in bed and try to sleep. A light mist floats around outside her window, as wild and scattered as her thoughts. 

She has until tomorrow morning to tell Vanessa she likes her and wants her to stay. Brooke has crammed as much as she could into one week, but there’s so much more she wants to do with Vanessa. She wants to take her out sailing and catch fresh fish that they’d cook for dinner. She wants to save their movie ticket stubs and take pictures of Vanessa that she could set as her lock screen and look at whenever she wants. She wants to have a bonfire down on the shore and stuff themselves with s'mores until they can’t eat another bite. She wants holidays and birthdays with Vanessa, and all the ordinary days too. 

She wants Vanessa to stay. 

But can she really do this? She’s been okay with a week of companionship, but can Brooke handle more than that? Can she get used to living with someone again, when it’s been one cup of coffee, one plate on the table, one person, for seven years?

She’s never committed to anyone, just a few dates in college. Her independence was always important, always something she enjoyed more than the dates, so she knew a relationship wasn’t right for her. But then her bad months had come, and Brooke didn’t enjoy _anything_ anymore.

Her focus for the longest time was on getting healthy again. Getting back into doing everyday tasks. Trying to find things she enjoyed again, trying to find the part of herself she lost to the cloud of anxiety and depression. 

Then her grandfather died, and basic things once again took all her focus and energy. She just wanted to make sure she ate and showered and took her medication every day, that she got enough sleep and exercise. She wasn’t going to add dating to the list, especially when she had lost everyone she loved, everyone she was ever close to. She didn’t need more pain, didn’t need to get close to someone she would inevitably lose. 

She grew accustomed to solitude the way you grow accustomed to darkness, until you no longer remembered what light is. 

She’s been talking with Dr. Ganache about putting herself out there again, but she doesn’t know how. Making small talk and letting herself be vulnerable and trying to find someone she wants to spend time with is _hard_ , especially when half the town thinks you're a crazy lighthouse keeper, and that independence and solitude she used to enjoy have been holding her prisoner longer than she realized. 

In theory, she’s wanted someone here, someone to see every day and let in her life. Someone to make breakfast for and watch movies with and talk to and hold while she slept. Someone who would love her, and someone she could love in return, who she would let see all the worried and sad parts of her as well as the happy ones. 

But it’s only ever been in theory. 

She never thought it would happen, and now someone is right in front of her, and somehow, after all these years of wanting someone, she’s not ready, like how you’re not ready for cold water after sitting in the sun. It’s almost like her whole life has been spent in the warmth of a solitude she couldn’t escape, a solitude that has stewed to a heat so high the cold shock of companionship might kill her no matter how much she wants it. 

But she wants it. She wants it so badly. She wants to get to know Vanessa more, discover all the tiny things about her she hasn’t had time to learn yet, moving as fast or as slow as they both agree on.

It’s a risk, and Brooke doesn’t take risks, doesn’t leave the cape, because three people she loved left it and never came back. Hell, she doesn’t even leave the lighthouse much, except for her routine Main Street trips and daily walks on the beach because Dr. Ganache recommended Brooke get fresh air and exercise as much as she can. 

It’s not just a risk, of laying her heart out when she’s kept it safe for so long, but it’s also losing some of her control. In the lighthouse, Brooke is always in control. She helps ships get through the treacherous sea, the waves curling around the boat like tentacles, to find their way home. Can she give up control to someone else, get used to another person’s needs? Can she trust Vanessa to get her back home if she strays away?

Can she take her heart out of its tower and give it to Vanessa? 

Vanessa had said she didn’t have anything to go back to. Did that mean she would be happy staying here? Would she be okay with Brooke creating a home for her here? That’s all Brooke wants. She wants this to be a home for both of them, for Vanessa’s feet to know the lighthouse tower like hers, for two kitchen chairs to always be filled, for new memories to be made, memories that wouldn’t disrespect the old ones but that would only build on their joy. 

She wants her safe space to be Vanessa’s safe space too. And tomorrow morning, she’s going to tell her. 

Somehow, soothed by the sounds of the ocean that she could always hear, Brooke falls asleep. 

\---

_She sees her parents first._

_It’s a perfect summer day, Brooke on a sailboat and her parents in a small motorboat._

_They look comforting and solid, golden heroes, like all parents look, until you get older and realize they’re just people._

_They smile and wave to her as the boat vanishes across the sea, leaving Cape Charles forever._

_Another boat pulls up, this one carrying her grandfather. He’s in his keeper coat with the matching cap, and all Brooke wants is to hug him, breathe in his scent one last time, but he’s too far and her boat won’t move._

_“Trim your sails, Brookie,” he says._

_It’s a sailing phrase about moving your sails to take advantage of a change in wind conditions._

_“But there’s no wind,” she tells him._

_“But it’s coming. And you’ll be ready,” he says confidently. One last smile, and he’s gone too._

_Brooke’s heart nearly stops as Vanessa pulls up in a boat. Brooke can’t let her sail away, can’t let her leave the cape._

_She lost everyone she ever loved once they left the cape._

_“Vanessa!” she screams. “Please don’t go! Vanessa, please,” she begs._

_But the boat speeds away, and Brooke’s sailboat splits down the middle, revealing the enormous ocean below, pitch-black and deeper than can ever be known, its darkness waiting to swallow her up._

_“Vanessa!” she keeps screaming, thrashing around, but she’s already below the cold water, and she’ll never see Vanessa again--_

“Hey, hey, shh. It’s just a dream. You’re okay.”

Brooke shoots up in bed and gasps for air. Her heart is beating so fast she thinks it might break through her chest. She can’t see clearly, the room dark and blurry, like she’s still underwater, sinking with nothing to hold onto. 

“You’re okay, I got you. Just breathe.” 

For just a second, she thinks the voice is her grandfather’s, coming to soothe her after a nightmare about monsters under the bed. 

She does her best to follow the soft voice’s instructions, but her panicked breaths only bring in drops of air, like trying to breathe through a straw. 

“You’re here with me. Everything’s okay.” 

She’s here with Vanessa, because that’s who the voice belongs to. Vanessa steps closer and grabs one of Brooke’s trembling hands, the other smoothing her hair as she continues to whisper that it’s okay. Brooke focuses on Vanessa’s touch, her warm hands steadying Brooke’s shakes, reminding her that she’s in a solid bed, not an unstable ocean, that Vanessa is with her too. 

Brooke takes two deep breaths, counting in her head, heart slowly returning to its normal pace. Vanessa’s fingers curled around hers dull the buzzing in her mind, making everything calm again. Things swerve into focus, the tiny sailboat replica and worn copy of _Charlotte’s Web_ illuminated by the lamp on her bedside table. Henry is somehow still asleep at the foot of her bed, a comforting ball of fluff. 

She’s home. She’s safe. 

Another breath washes out the last bit of panic, and all she’s left with is a sweat-damp shirt and embarrassment over waking Vanessa because she had a bad dream like a little kid.

“I-I’m okay. Thank you,” Brooke says hoarsely, throat still scratchy from her screams for Vanessa. She peeks at her clock, and the reading _3:53 AM_ blinks back at her. “I’m sorry I woke you up.” 

She reaches for the stuffed dolphin from Vanessa, which landed across the bed, and holds it tightly in her free hand, breathing in the scent of arcade popcorn, hearing Vanessa whoop with joy when she won on the first try.

“I was up anyway. Can’t really sleep,” Vanessa says. “And don’t you be feeling bad. Everyone has bad dreams sometimes. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.” 

Brooke just nods, still in awe of how Vanessa always knows what she’s thinking, how she always has the right words to make things better. She’s really going to miss that. 

Brooke sighs. It’s 4AM. She should try to get a few more hours of sleep, but she knows if she closes her eyes all she’s going to see is Vanessa sailing away while Brooke reaches for her, getting only handfuls of water that slip through her fingers. Sleep isn’t an option. 

Vanessa also seems reluctant to go back to sleep, given that she’s still stroking Brooke’s hair, still holding her hand, still searching her face to make sure she’s okay. 

Brooke remembers the promise she made before she fell asleep, wondering if the nightmare has given her a chance to do something about it, a chance to let Vanessa know how she feels. 

_Trim your sails, Brookie_. 

What is this sudden chance but a change in the wind?

“Hey, uh, you know what I do sometimes when I can’t sleep?” Brooke asks. 

“What?” 

Brooke smiles. “Just follow me.”

\---

“It’s so pretty up here at night,” Vanessa says, looking out the lighthouse tower windows into the dark sea, twinkling with reflections of starlight. 

Brooke finishes arranging the blankets and pillows at the base of the light and stands next to Vanessa, filled with the same delight of taking in the view together, feeling like the only people in the universe, with all this beauty existing just for them. 

“It is,” Brooke agrees. “Will you sit with me?”

She and Vanessa nestle close together, melting into the fleece blanket Brooke wraps around both their shoulders. 

“I would come up here at night sometimes when I couldn’t sleep, or I felt scared. I would look at the water, and the stars, and I wasn’t so scared anymore. It’s like--”

“Like you aren’t alone,” Vanessa finishes. 

“Yeah. Like things aren’t so scary when the world is so beautiful.” No one has understood Brooke like this since her grandfather. Her and Vanessa just _get_ each other, like their minds are on the same wavelengths. 

She twirls around a piece of rope, trying to pull her words from its fibers. 

“What’s with the rope? You didn’t bring me up here to murder me, did you?” Vanessa asks, but there’s a smile on her face and a laugh in her question. 

“No murder, I promise.” Brooke smiles. “The rope thing is from my grandpa. I worried a lot when I was a kid, so he taught me how to tie knots and would give me a piece of rope when I got really nervous. It helped me calm down a little.”

She didn’t know it then, but the constant worrying was one of the early signs of her anxiety, a mild, warning wave lapping at her feet. She would worry over tests in school, over dance, over being away from home too long, struggling to breathe in the school bathroom. When college started, she’d sleep half the day and still be exhausted, no amount of rest easing the deep ache in her muscles, the way everything irritated her and ate up her focus. And by the time she realized she was standing in the middle of a hurricane, it was too late. 

“Do you still get nervous a lot?” Vanessa asks. 

“Not as much. It was really bad for a while. But I was able to get help, and it’s a lot better now.”

She had to take a leave of absence when her physically fit, 21-year-old body suddenly didn’t have the energy to lift a pen, even for classes she once enjoyed. Half her mind screamed that she would be a failure if she didn’t do the million things she had to do, and the other half said she shouldn’t bother doing them because she was already a failure anyway. The weight of it all buried her under her covers, body too heavy to lift out of bed.

When it hit that point, her grandfather encouraged her to see a doctor, leading to the referral to Dr. Ganache, whose therapy and prescribed medications slowly, slowly, helped Brooke feel alive again, like poison had been leached out of her. 

“I’m really glad you got help,” Vanessa says. 

“Me too. It was my grandfather, really. He always took care of me.”

Vanessa is quiet for a few seconds. “Is it okay for me to ask if it was sudden?” Vanessa says, and Brooke knows what she means. She trusts Vanessa enough to talk about it, knows that it’s not lessening his importance to her by sharing it with Vanessa. 

“It’s okay. And it was. He had a heart attack on a train going to the city. No warning signs or anything. And by the time I got there...he was gone.”

She remembers how it didn’t seem real, everything hazy as she moved through the hospital. How his hands, rough from years of rope-tying yet gentle enough to braid her hair and teach her to ride a bike, were unmoving. How he would never move again, this man who captained ships and commanded the room with his stories. How he would never hug her again. 

The tears are streaming down her face now. Brooke hasn’t cried like this in a while, but it feels good, like a release, like the tears are washing some of the sadness away. She lets Vanessa hold her, whispering soothing words in her ear and rubbing her back as she cries. 

He died four months after her first therapy appointment, a cruel trick of the universe that right when she started getting better and feeling like herself again, the only person she cared about, the only person she had left, was taken from her, just like that. 

Brooke is often torn about whether it being so sudden was better or worse. She’s grateful he didn’t pass of any long illness where he would have suffered. But it was _so_ sudden, so out of the blue, that there was no chance to prepare for it or tell him the things she was sure he knew but that she would have wanted to tell him anyway. He was gone mere hours after she’d said goodbye to him, thinking it was for the day and not forever. 

One of the worst things was that she never got to thank him for treating her like a normal person after her parents died, making her life fun and loving and normal and always being there for her after she lost the two most important people in her life. She never got to thank him for driving her to appointments and making sure she took all her meds, running her a bath when she didn’t have the energy to stand for a shower, being nice to her even when she snapped at him. She never got to thank him for not giving up on her, even when she had given up on herself. 

“I just never got to tell him, you know?” Brooke asks through her tears. “I never got to thank him or tell him how much I loved him.”

“He knew, Brooke. I’m sure he did. And he loved you too.”

Brooke rests her head on Vanessa’s chest, Vanessa moving her hand to stroke Brooke’s hip, gently breathing in time with each other as Brooke’s tears slow. Vanessa’s heart is steady and comforting beneath Brooke’s ear, and she’s ready. 

She can do it. If Vanessa doesn’t like her, she’ll survive it. She’s survived worse, survived the bad months where anxiety and depression filled her lungs, sunk into her bones, and dragged her down into the deep, making a home for her there. 

She’s not letting another person go without telling them how she feels. 

“Vanessa, I need to tell you something.”

“What is it?”

Brooke sits herself up and meets Vanessa’s eyes, the brown open and inviting.

“The nightmare I had was about you--about losing you. And it made me realize how much I care about you. How much I like you.” Her cheeks flare up, but she pushes on. “I really, _really_ like you. And if you’re okay with it, I’d love for you to stay here with me. But only if you’re okay with it, and I understand if you don’t--”

“I like you too,” Vanessa says, tears welling up in her eyes. “When I woke up and saw you, I thought you were an angel. You ain’t proved me wrong yet. I love this town, and this lighthouse, and you, and I...of course I’ll stay with you!”

Brooke bites her lip, and then she turns to Vanessa and kisses her, their lips meeting softly. Vanessa cups Brooke’s cheek, her touch warm and soothing, carrying with it each day of the past week, the tiny ways their love has grown. 

Brooke’s had a few kisses before, but nothing like this. Her fingers are tingling, her face under Vanessa’s palm so warm she might combust. She lets her hands roam across Vanessa’s back, pulling her closer until their chests touch and their hearts are so close they might really be in each other’s ribs. Vanessa’s touches make Brooke feel alive in a way she hasn’t in years, the world glowing and opening up and flooding with possibility. 

She sees a future for her and Vanessa, of dinner and sailing and more kisses, of curling around each other in bed and drinking coffee in the diner and getting lost in the bookstore and sharing popcorn at the movies. Of watching ships come and go, their love as steady and powerful as the tides carrying ships. 

Brooke pulls away from the kiss, and they curl up on the blankets, watching the stars and talking about all the things they can do together. 

And they’re still intertwined together, the lighthouse keeper and the siren, when the sun rises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please comment if you'd like! Just a short epilogue left for this and then this fic is done.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last chapter is here, with a short, sweet epilogue. Thank you so much to everyone that has stuck with this fic and commented, your support means so much to me. This has become of my favorite fics I've ever done, and I hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it. One last to thank you to Writ, for supporting this, brainstorming with me, betaing, and helping me do the best I could with this.  
> Please leave feedback if you'd like!

“There’s a _hat?_ ” Vanessa squeals. “You mean I coulda seen how adorable you look in that hat all this time and you didn’t tell me?”

Brooke groans as she stands in front of Vanessa, buttoning the keeper coat and adjusting the matching navy cap on her head. 

“ _Adorable_ makes me sound like a kitten,” Brooke says. “I was going for, like, dignified or something.” 

Vanessa smooths out the lapels and puts her hands on Brooke’s shoulders. “A very dignified kitten.” She presses her lips to Brooke’s in a soft kiss, sweet and sticky with syrup from the waffles they’d made together that morning.

Brooke pulls away reluctantly, hands restlessly working through a piece of rope. “You’re sure it looks okay? I just want things to go well.”

“It’s gonna be fine, baby. I know it will. You got your fancy little coat on, and you know everything you need to about the lighthouse. I’ll be with you the whole time.”

“You’re right,” Brooke agrees. 

“Hey, maybe I’ll even wear a white sheet and make scary noises in the tower to freak people out.” Vanessa cackles. 

“Ness.” Brooke swats at her playfully, the nickname she nervously used on Vanessa one day slipping out now without thought, her heart tugging when Vanessa smiles like she always does. 

“I bet you can come up with a real good ghost story to tell about me,” Vanessa continues. “I want drama, baby! Secret lovers and all that stuff. And pirates!”

“I’ll get right on it.”

Brooke smiles as Vanessa massages her shoulders, her hands taking away all the tension, reminding Brooke she is loved. It’s something she’s reminded of often these days, in all the kisses and words but also in putting her head in Vanessa’s lap at night while Vanessa plays with her hair, in Vanessa coming home with a book she thought Brooke would like the same day Brooke came home with flowers she thought Vanessa would like. 

“Really though, you sure you don’t mind? You didn’t have to take off work for me,” Brooke says. A’keria had hired Vanessa on the spot to work in the boutique with her, and Vanessa loves it. Brooke is happy she’s found her own little place on Main Street, a place to really be herself and laugh with A’keria. She even does displays in the store, sprawling out on the living room floor and sketching designs while Brooke reads, both sipping hot chocolate and enjoying each other’s company without even needing words. 

“I wanted to,” Vanessa insists. She points out the window with a smile on her face. “Hey, look how pretty the sun is. My mom used to say nothin’ bad could happen on a day this sunny.”

The sun _is_ pretty, soft golden light bathing their faces, and Brooke lets herself be comforted, lets herself appreciate that Vanessa is here for her, a change from her solitude. There’s been a lot of changes in Brooke’s life since her relationship with Vanessa, but she’s learning to sail with them, instead of resisting. She’s starting to learn that not all changes are bad. 

Like rolling over in bed and having Vanessa there, legs always tangled in Brooke’s, snuggling closer when she wanted warmth. Like Vanessa coming over to the cart with a Jenga tower of ice cream cartons in the grocery store, and Brooke seeing that she didn’t have to ask Vanessa to get her favorite peanut butter swirl flavor, because Vanessa already did. Like Vanessa leaving the door open a crack when she showers, just enough for Brooke to sit outside and hear her raspy voice work through Rihanna, or, strangely enough, “Country Roads” from _Whisper of the Heart_ , each moment stamped on Brooke’s heart. 

They walk on the beach together at night, talking about everything and nothing, waves gently lapping at their feet, and all Brooke can think is how pretty Vanessa looks in the sunset, how grateful she is to have this woman at her side.

Vanessa is sure to give her all the space she needs, telling her to take their walk by herself when she knows Brooke needs the alone time, and holding her extra tight when Brooke needs the comfort. 

It’s been wonderful, every day safe and warm and full of all the things she dreamed of, hands brushing in the bag of buttery movie popcorn, baking cakes and talking about their childhoods, helping each other share in their pasts while appreciating the present and dreaming of the future. Sometimes she can’t stop staring as Vanessa plans displays with her tongue out in concentration, and she thanks every force in the universe that the waves carried Vanessa to her shore, because she finally has someone to move through life with her. The loneliness that once preyed on her without her even knowing is gone in the wake of Vanessa and the happiness she brings to Brooke’s life, a breathless joy she never thought she’d experience again. 

“I’m really proud of you, okay?” Vanessa pulls Brooke down beside her on the bed, placing a hand on her back, its weight anchoring her to Vanessa, to their life together. “I know how hard you worked for this.”

Brooke blinks back tears, because no one has told her that in years, and she needs it more than ever today, when they’re facing one of the biggest changes they’ve had: the very first lighthouse tour. 

Opening three days a week for summer tours had taken a lot of thinking and conversations between Brooke and Vanessa. Vanessa was sure to tell Brooke she shouldn’t feel like she had to do this if she didn’t want to. But the more Brooke thought about it, the more it became something she wanted to do, for herself and for them both. 

For so long, it was just her in this lighthouse. She built herself up with the same storm-battered bricks of the tower, keeping everyone and everything out like the tower keeps out wind and rain. Like it keeps out all the bad things. 

But lighthouses also let things in. They let ships in their light to get home. Sometimes, they even let in shipwrecked sirens, who slip through the bricks sheltering a broken heart and turn that heart into a home for them both. 

And after a lot of thought, Brooke decided that she wanted to let people in, wanted them to share in the history of the lighthouse, wanted the spirit of the tower and her grandfather to live on, while knowing she doesn’t have to surrender her home or safety. 

Vanessa had helped with the planning and held her hand through all the phone calls with the historical society. Dr. Ganache had talked through all her fears and helped her get used to the idea. Even Nina got in on the act, spreading the word and keeping the pancakes coming when Brooke and Vanessa planned things over their Wednesday morning breakfasts. 

Brooke is as ready as she’ll ever be, and she exchanges the rope for Vanessa’s hands, letting her fingers run across skin as smooth as the sea, pressing gentle kisses to each knuckle. 

“What time is the history lady coming?” Vanessa asks. 

“In about half an hour.” Just saying it makes her heart speed up, because it’s _real_ , it’s happening, and people will be here soon to learn about the lighthouse, to look out those windows like Brooke did every day, to take in the view she’s only ever shared with two people. 

“Hey,” Vanessa says softly, stroking Brooke’s back until whatever is squeezing her chest releases. “It’s okay to be scared. But you can do this. It’s gonna be good. Just like that thing you said about the sky last night.”

Brooke nods. She can do this. She spent months preparing, and she has Vanessa with her. She doesn’t want to get too superstitious, but there had been a red sky last night, and in the saying, a red sky at night is a sailor’s delight, meaning the seas would be safe and welcoming and the skies would be clear.

“Tell me a story before she gets here,” Vanessa says, pulling Brooke out of her thoughts. 

“Which one?”

Vanessa winks. “You know which one.”

“You’re sure you’re not sick of it?” Brooke asks.

“Never, baby. Never. Just like I’ll never get sick of you, or stop loving you.”

Brooke nods gratefully at how Vanessa always takes the time to reassure her that she loves her and will always be here. Even when Brooke had a bad day a few months ago, Vanessa was there, wrapping her in blankets, making hot chocolate, and sitting by the couch to read a story from one of Brooke’s myth books, her voice rough and choppy like quick waves dashing into the rocks, yet still soothing the buzzing in Brooke’s mind. 

Brooke squeezes Vanessa’s hand, knowing that today will be okay, that they’ll always have each other, and clears her throat. 

“Once upon a time, a brave, bold, and beautiful siren washed up on the shore of a lighthouse, where there lived a lonely lighthouse keeper…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I have a few different things in progress, but it might be a bit before any of them are ready to publish, so I appreciate your patience.


End file.
